


Electric Blue

by bluerosekatie



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger, Tetsuwan Atom | Astro Boy
Genre: 1960s Tetsuwan Atom, Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Basically just Tetsuwan Atom in the Lost Cities, Cliffhanger, Crossover, Dr Tenma is a bad dad, Elves, Family Issues, Gen, I Shannoned It, I'm Bad At Tagging, May be continued, Not Canon Compliant, POV Third Person Limited, Quick Read, Robots, Royalty, Sci-Fi Fantasy, Short, Technology, Technopathy, Tenma is basically Lord Cassius, This was a contest entry at one point but it's over now, angsty, kotlc au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosekatie/pseuds/bluerosekatie
Summary: Basically part of the pilot episode of Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom set in the KOTLC universe. I may or may not continue this, and if I do... I already have some ideas for how it might go, and KOTLC characters may be involved.
Kudos: 6





	Electric Blue

Tobio could hear his father’s footsteps clicking against the immaculate crystal floor outside his room. He knew that meant he was running late - his father’s timing was always a few minutes faster than his own. His white shirt slipped on easily, but caught a little about halfway down, that seemed normal. Or at least it had been normal lately.

“Coming!” he said. He turned to the mirror and tried to pat down his messy brown hair, but even gel didn’t seem to help.

“We’re going to Atlantis to pick up more components,” his father, Lord Umataro Tenma, said through the door. “Meet me at the Leapmaster.”

Fully dressed, Tobio walked out of his room and followed his father upstairs to the Leapmaster 500. He struggled to keep up with his father’s long legs.

They passed a portrait of Tobio’s mother along the way. She shared her son’s dark brown hair and short stature, but no longer the same household - earlier that year, she’d filed a match-fail. His father ignored the painting. Tobio stared up at it for a few seconds, then caught up with his father.

The bright, clear room at the top of the house twinkled with the five hundred leaping crystals hanging from their threads.

“Atlantis!” his father said brusquely.

A crystal lowered.

He led Tobio into the path created by the hanging crystal, and they glittered away.

They reappeared on the rocky shoreline above the Mediterranean.

Was everything fuzzy, or was he just a little low on concentration lately? Tobio blinked, and his sight came into focus. The gray-blue sea reminded him of his father’s eyes. They walked down into the cave, and he watched as his father uncapped a whirlpool and threw it into the sea. Seconds later, the waters roared and churned in a long waterslide to the ocean floor.

“Woohoo!!!” Tobio shouted, jumping into the slide. Spray bombarded him, but he continued to whoop and holler happily.

“Stop that,” his father said. “We’re nobility - behave yourself.”

Tobio fell silent. _Why does that mean I can’t have fun?_

The soft landing on the sponge dried both father and son off, but Tobio still felt cold and wet - as if his father’s words had made something inside freeze up.

Atlantis was bustling with elves. It was a weekend, so prodigies were home with their families and many had headed to Atlantis for the many stores and restaurants it held. Tobio’s father led his son to one of the shops, which held wires, solar panels, diodes, and other Technopath equipment.

“Hey Dad, what do you think I’ll manifest as?” he asked.

“I hope you will become a Technopath,” his father said stiffly. “It’s in your DNA, and you will be able to continue my work if you do.”

_Yeah, sure._ Tobio thought. _Your work that I never get to see._

They examined the components. His father picked a few up and brought them to the register, while Tobio stared at his reflection in a bright silver gear.

_Were my eyes that bright before?_ He couldn’t have forgotten his own eye color, could he? Rattled, he followed his father outside and towards another shop.

Tobio twisted his hands and watched his feet to make sure he didn’t trip. Finally, he worked up the courage to ask his father about all the strange little things that hadn’t been lining up.

“Dad…”

“Yes, Tobio?”

“Do I look different to you?”

“What do you mean, different?” his father said carefully.

“My eyes are a brighter color than they used to be, and my hair’s darker, and I’m better at PE than I was before. Did something happen to me?”

“Changes happen as you grow up,” his father said.

“But do eye colors change? My eyes were gray blue, like yours, and now they’re electric blue.”

Lord Tenma didn’t answer for a long time.

“I faded and the physicians were able to bring me back, that’s what you told me. But if I faded, wouldn’t I still be a little grayed out? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Your eyes haven’t changed,” he said finally.

“But they were gray blue, and I wasn’t this good at PE before.”

“ _Your_ eyes have always been electric blue,” Lord Tenma repeated.

“What do you mean?”

“I never should have tried this. It never would have worked. You aren’t him, and you never will be.”

“I’m not who? What do you mean??” Tobio pleaded.

“You are not my son. You’re a robot I built, and I never should have tried to replace him.”

_Replace…robot....my eyes…_ The pieces came together, like rebuilding an Imparter or making a temporary leaping crystal.

Lord Tenma walked away, leaving his creation in the streets of Atlantis.

The robot boy tried to follow, but within the swarm of people, most of which were taller than him, he quickly lost sight of Lord Tenma. Despite his efforts to forget, to try and think he’d made a mistake, he felt the differences he’d tried to ignore.

His elbows clicked and stopped at an exact angle as he bent them. 

His feet hit the ground with strange, metallic sounds.

His ears caught every sound within the city, overwhelming him.

A woman walked over to him and tried to ask what was wrong, but he gently pushed her away.

“Don’t touch me!” he said. A bolt of electric blue flew from his hands and hit her. She cried out in pain.

He stumbled out of the street and tried to reconcile what he felt with what he remembered. Memories from the life he’d just been told was another’s flashed through his head.

_I can’t go home now. I don’t have a pathfinder, and who knows if I could actually light leap without Dad? I’m stuck here in Atlantis, unless…_

He recalled another memory. His father - or, the man who made him, he supposed - had told him, if he was ever unavailable, to hail his colleague. Another member of the nobility, a Conjurer, but with great knowledge of technology, Hiroshi Ochanomizu was a kind elf, though not one the boy had been around very often.

_It’s my only chance of being able to know what really happened,_ he thought.

The robot boy raised his imparter.

“Show me Hiroshi Ochanomizu.”

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this as an art/fic contest for a KOTLC discord, and here's the artwork I made to connect with it: [link](https://www.deviantart.com/bluerosekatie/art/Show-Me-Hiroshi-Ochanomizu-845946539)


End file.
